THE ALPINE THEME

This is the third in a series of a mini-articles about the Themes in The Golf Club following on from The Rural Theme and The Autumn Theme posts. Themes are the various environments that the Greg Norman Course Designer uses when creating a course and describe the terrain, the flora, the fauna, the water, the tees, the fairways, the rough, the greens and the surrounding land.

Aerial view of a typical Alpine Theme course.

The Alpine Theme is probably the most dramatic of the Themes in The Golf Club. With the stunning mountain range providing the backdrop to courses and the thick coniferous forest separating the holes it is truly a fantastic location to play some golf.

The trees are a variety of fir, pine and spruce.

The forest consists of a variety of spruce, pine and fir trees and is home to a variety of wildlife including deer, rabbits, squirrels and wolves. Eagles soar above the tree tops and various other flocks can be found around the environment including ducks on the water of the alpine lakes.

Fairway, light rough and deep rough on an Alpine Theme course.

When it comes to the terrain, the fairways will play very similarly to the Rural Theme in that they will have decent bounce and roll. The light rough will be a little thicker than the Rural and Autumn Themes and thus will be tougher to play from. The deep rough, whilst not as nightmarish as on the Links Theme, is punishing. Add to that the tall trees and thick growth and it becomes clear that straying from the fairway is something to avoid. Even if you keep the tree coverage low when creating a course, what trees there are will affect sightlines and often come into play.

A green on an Alpine Theme course.

One of the key factors that makes playing courses from this Theme a challenge are that, even though greens will have an average bounce, they will be medium to medium fast in speed. The slightly faster greens will require extra concentration. The wind can really affect your scores on courses in this Theme. Whilst winds are around average in peaks and lows from day to day, they can be gusty and difficult to judge at times.